Patrick's Wiki on Impressionism


  • Relevant facts about the time period
  • Relevant facts about the life, career and production of artist and composers
  • Photos, embedded YouTube clips etc.
  • Your own opinion about the art and music in the impressionism
  • Remember sources!


1.Impressionism





2.Art in the Impressionism in general

As said in the video above, impressionist were, above all, there to paint the light. They weren't interested in moral messages at all (They painted paintings without political or moral messages). They had better colors than what was available beforehand and instead of mixing colors on the pallet they mixed them on the actual canvas. They would for example put blue and yellow beside each other to make green.

3.Monet

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In a nutshell, Monet was the founder of the French impersonistic technique.
He was born the 14/11/1840 and died in 1926 of lung cancer.
He was an impersonistic painter who painted in dots that when close up are just colors but when further away create a picture, or rather, a painting. He is famous for painting series more than just single paintings, he painted lots of versions of "The lily pond" and he often painted his garden. Monet and some other painters arranged their own exhibition because they were cast out of all the other ones. Monet's painting called Impression: Sunrise, Le Havre was exhibited in 1874 and is highly considered to have given the impressionistic period its name.

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4.Renoir

He was born in 1841, the 25th of February and died December the 3d 1919.
Some of his most famous paintings are of nudes and he often painted people in intimate situations.

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5.Pissarro

10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903.

Self portrait, 1873
Self portrait, 1873


6.Music in the Impressionism in general

Impressionism in music was mainly a French phenomenon. It began in the late 19th century and it continued far into the 20th century.
"It focused on suggestion and atmosphere rather than strong emotion or the depiction of a story." (Wikipedia )
Impressionist composers preferred shot pieces of music such as preludes, nocturnes and arabesques. Dissonance and whole tone scale plus other unusual scales were often used. (All info courtesy of wikipedia.org (See link above))

7. (Claude) Debussy

August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918.


He was one of the most important French composers of all time, and among the most important impressionist composers although he disliked being called an impressionist.


8.Ravel

March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937.
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Ravel met Debussy in the 1890's, Debussy was about 12 years older than him. Ravel was influenced by Debussy's music. Ravel's piano music is very demanding for the performers.


9.Vaughan Williams

12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958.
An English composer of many types of music including film music.
He was a collector of English folk music and song.
He wrote symphonies and operas as well.



10.Frederick Delius

29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934.
According to wikipedia Frederick Delius was a German-English composer. His parents were German but he was born in England. He was heavily influenced by African-American music which he heard when he lived in the United States as a young adult. He wrote many different types of music including operas and concertos.


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